Page 78 of Pucked Up

“Anyway, uh…that sounds super disrespectful of his memory, so I’m sorry.” He cleared his throat loudly. “Want to see pics of my Nugget?”

“Is that…a name for a body part?” I asked, taking a step back.

Ford grinned in a way that told me it was probably the name for his left ball or butthole or something. “Nah. She’s my kitten, and she’s literally the most amazing thing that ever lived.”

Nugget was maybe not the most amazing thing that ever lived, but she was very cute. She was obviously mixed with Persian because she had a fluffy tail and a squished face, but the rest of her coat was sleek, and she was calico colored.

“I found her in the trash behind the rink,” Ford said as we were heading for the elevator. The benefit had already started, and still no word from Boden or Micah, which was making me a little antsy. Ford had sent another three texts, but they’d gone unread. Showing me cat photos was obviously his way of coping, and I was happy to let him distract me. “Some dickhead put her in there to die.”

“That’s monstrous.”

“I know, right. I wish I knew who the fucker was. I’d puthimin the goddamn dumpster.” He leaned against me as he flipped through another series of photos of Nugget yawning. He kept going until his screen paused on a man holding the cat, who looked very familiar.

“Is that Tucker?”

It couldn’t be though. He had two brown eyes and no scars and hair that was a little longer and a few shades darker.

“Haha, what, no.” Ford quickly closed out of his photo app. “That was just…a random stranger. You didn’t see that.”

I stared at him. “Who?—”

The doors to the elevator opened, and Ford swept out, getting immediately lost in the crowd ahead of us. I’d only seen the person for a second, but that was most definitely weird. I thought about making a big deal of it, but in reality, I was still looking for a way to distract myself.

I didn’t want to be there, and the feeling only got worse when I walked into the ballroom and saw black and white banners of Reid’s face hanging everywhere. He wasn’t a stranger to me, of course. I had photos of him on my phone, one in my office, and several in the house.

He was always smiling at me from some room somewhere. But this was different. This was Reid in his element. And several, of course, had me in them. I didn’t look like myself. My gaze was haunted, and there wasn’t a smile to be found as I stood behind him and pushed him around the rink.

He was passionate about disabled people having the same access to fame and respect that able-bodied athletes did, but privately, we both knew it had been a compromise. He’d never score top points again. He could barely take a swipe at the puck with the functionality of his arms after the accident.

He was on the ice for show. Every team wanted him, but only because he was Reid Martin. He was their founder. Their god. What kind of people would they be if they put stats ahead of the man himself?

And he’d hated knowing that.

I should have stayed home. I should have juststayed out of all of it. I should have refused to take Arnaud’s call and never come to Massachusetts at all. Then I wouldn’t have met Boden, and my heart wouldn’t be in a million pieces, and…

No. No, I didn’t really believe that. Just like with Reid, having Boden for a little while was better than never knowing him at all. The pain would always be worth it, even when it felt impossible to bear.

And I would get through tonight too.

Spying the open bar, I carefully began to weave my way through the crowd when I felt a firm hand on my arm. “Hugo? No way!”

And so…it began.

CHAPTER

NINETEEN

BODEN

“I can’t believehow late we are.”

Micah squeezed my arm tightly as the car meandered through the busy traffic. I was, by nature, a lead foot—or lead hand. Whatever. I rarely bitched about other people’s driving, but goddamn, it was like the Lyft driver was being paid by the hour and not the mile.

“Relax,” Micah said. “Being late is fashionable.”

“Uh-huh, until you have to deal with a panicked Ford who’s come up with some disaster scenario in his head about an underground English terror organization kidnapping disabled hockey players for ransom.”

Micah grinned. “That would make a fucking amazing movie.”

---